ABSTRACT
In recent decades, surface air temperature (SAT) data from Global reanalyses points to maximum warming over the northern Barents area. However, a scarcity of observations hampers the confidence of reanalyses in this Arctic hotspot region. Here, we study the warming over the past 20-40 years based on new available SAT observations and a quality controlled comprehensive SAT dataset from the northern archipelagos in the Barents Sea. We identify a statistically significant record-high annual warming of up to 2.7 °C per decade, with a maximum in autumn of up to 4.0 °C per decade. Our results are compared with the most recent global and Arctic regional reanalysis data sets, as well as remote sensing data records of sea ice concentration (SIC), sea surface temperature (SST) and high-resolution ice charts. The warming pattern is primarily consistent with reductions in sea ice cover and confirms the general spatial and temporal patterns represented by reanalyses. However, our findings suggest even a stronger rate of warming and SIC-SAT relation than was known in this region until now.
ABSTRACT
A climate data record of global sea surface temperature (SST) spanning 1981-2016 has been developed from 4 × 1012 satellite measurements of thermal infra-red radiance. The spatial area represented by pixel SST estimates is between 1 km2 and 45 km2. The mean density of good-quality observations is 13 km-2 yr-1. SST uncertainty is evaluated per datum, the median uncertainty for pixel SSTs being 0.18 K. Multi-annual observational stability relative to drifting buoy measurements is within 0.003 K yr-1 of zero with high confidence, despite maximal independence from in situ SSTs over the latter two decades of the record. Data are provided at native resolution, gridded at 0.05° latitude-longitude resolution (individual sensors), and aggregated and gap-filled on a daily 0.05° grid. Skin SSTs, depth-adjusted SSTs de-aliased with respect to the diurnal cycle, and SST anomalies are provided. Target applications of the dataset include: climate and ocean model evaluation; quantification of marine change and variability (including marine heatwaves); climate and ocean-atmosphere processes; and specific applications in ocean ecology, oceanography and geophysics.
